Friday, March 31, 2017

On the go at the moment is the seemingly never ending project to build myself a half decent engine. All seems to be working mechanically, however there is a slight, but very annoying vibration at all parts of the rev range that I want to nail. In this post here, I changed the top engine steady bushes, but didn't solve the issue. So today, I'm looking to remove the flywheel and swap it over with a spare to see what the effect will be.

I've decided to perform this task with the engine in situ as it's preferable to taking the engine out again, but looking at the engine bay, there is still a lot of work ahead as the flywheel is somewhere under this little lot...

Thursday, March 30, 2017

I know, I know... it's been ages since my previous blog post; but what with a mixture of winter weather limiting any progress, being too busy with work and also being unwell; I've not been able to crack on and get as much done as I would have wanted to. But fear not dear reader, the blog is not dead, at least not yet!!!

So as it's been so long, let's have a quick catch up on the story so far and take it from there...

Monday, October 31, 2016

Okay, before we start, I confess it's a corny title, but I did think long and hard about it and to be honest, it's the best I could come up with. That said: 'Steady On, Poly Gone!!' does describe perfectly what we're dealing with here today. So what are we dealing with today you may ask? Well ever since the engine rebuild, I've had polyurethane bushes in the top and bottom engine steadies, which seemed a good idea in theory, but in practice have been a bit too harsh as I can feel every single vibration coming from the engine. So to help remedy this, I've decided to switch over to rubber bushes to see if they're a bit more forgiving.

Tuesday, October 4, 2016

Well, having finally rebuilt the engine (for a second time), got the car through its MOT, set the ignition timing and air/fuel ratio, I was finally ready to put the engine through its run-in period. Obviously I decided to do a bit of research regarding best practices during the running in, but as always, the internet offers a vast selection of wildly differing opinions ranging from 'Drive it like you stole it' through to 'Pootle along never going over 2000 rpm'.

Wednesday, July 20, 2016

Following on from the previous post where I was faffing about with the ignition timing in the hope of getting my new engine running a little better, today I'll be turning my attentions to the air/fuel mixture and trying to get it optimised. To do this, I'll be using my Gunson Colortune kit I bought ages ago, so I'm pretty chuffed that it finally gets it outing.

Wednesday, July 6, 2016

So having built my new engine and getting the car legally roadworthy, now comes the task of making it nicer to drive. If you read the previous post, driving to the MOT garage was awful, the car had no power and didn't want to know at all on hills. To fix this the engine needs tuning up and that starts with the ignition timing, apparently... so I've read!!!

Friday, June 17, 2016

Well the day has finally arrived... MOT day!! Eeeek!! It's a day that I'm both dreading and at the same time, uncontainably excited about! As the car is currently untaxed, it's been off the road and declared as SORN to save a few pennies while the engine work was being overhauled.

So although it runs, it's never actually been tested as it would be illegal to drive it on a public road without tax or MOT, unless you're going to or from a pre-booked MOT test centre. So before I can really start to worry about it passing the MOT test, it needs to get from my tiny drive to the MOT garage with an untested, untuned, brand new engine... wish me luck!!